


Ludwig on the Beach

by Star_Tsar



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mental Health Issues, huey is having a bad morning, ludwig is donald's uncle, maybe au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25059433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Tsar/pseuds/Star_Tsar
Summary: Scrooge has breakfast with Huey and thinks about how much the duckling reminds him of Ludwig von Drake, his old brother-in-law.
Relationships: Huey Duck & Scrooge McDuck, Ludwig von Drake/Matilda McDuck
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	Ludwig on the Beach

Scrooge had decided to have breakfast in the garden. It was a good day for it, to his tastes. The invisible sun casting clear rays through an overcast sky, through teary-eyed clouds threatening the showers to come; chilled air hanging above the dewy flowers like mistrust, sometimes snaking down and around you like the thoughts of another day. It was a strange feeling, but good.

Beakley carried a platter of his regular breakfast, kipper and poached eggs and mushrooms, outside and onto the terrace overlooking the garden, and Scrooge followed. As she laid the plates and utensils on the lone table, he saw a nephew, Huey, rise from one of the arrayed chairs and attempt to excuse his being there.

“I’m sorry, I’ll go inside,” he said, politely but with some unnatural flatness.

“No,” Scrooge smiled and raised a hand. “Stay! Stay, sit with me.”

“Oh…” Huey faltered. “Okay,” he said, a little shakily, and reseated himself. He was off. But, at least he could appreciate the morning’s beauty.

Scrooge thought of asking the duckling if he’d also like something to eat, but then thought better of it. He sat and adjusted everything, his clothing and distance from the table and so on, just so. Without thinking again, Scrooge ate.

The more concrete sensuality of tasting the food clashed against the weird, existential mood the cool morning had given him. A breeze calmly rustled through the garden, the air whispering to itself. Lonely birds tried singing little hymns in the distance before quieting down. If they were inside, in the parlor, Scrooge would have asked his nephew to play something melancholy on the piano while he dined. 

And Huey did look in the mood to play something melancholy. Scrooge slowed his pace to more roundly appreciate the duckling’s expression -- that mystified and airy look in his eyes. Scrooge has seen it before.

Hubert Duck was a genius, beyond doubt. An eidetic memory, a supercomputer brain, a prototypical and uncapturable soul. Scrooge had only ever known one other mind like his nephew’s. Ludwig von Drake, Huey’s uncle on his mother’s father’s side, and Scrooge’s ex brother-in-law (and dear, dear friend). Whencever Ludwig inherited his genius, Huey had gotten it from the same place.

Scrooge was astounded when he met with Ludwig’s preponderous intellect; at their first meeting, he demonstrated his mental powers like parlor tricks (which they would go on to become, when he and Matilda would host parties). Ludwig would flash his eyes at any random page of a phone book, which they had back then, and look away before perfectly reciting every name and number found therein. He would then take a few of the phone numbers and, treating them as numerals, multiply or divide them as fast as any calculator.

But that was only to impress acquaintances and passers-by. As Scrooge came to know Ludwig, the real, truly frightened depths of his intelligence were revealed. For every subject that he even passingly observed, Ludwig could demonstrate an encyclopedic knowledge. Of every branch of science and the arts, every era and school of philosophy, and even ideas esoteric, Professor von Drake could not only regurgitate textbooks worth of facts but also demonstrate the most profound understanding.

It all came at a dire cost, though he rarely let it show. Scrooge often saw Ludwig surrounded by admirers or colleagues, earthbound thinkers and geniuses, but he spoke to them all the same way: like an adult trying to talk to children on their own level, or more like some ancient god descending his mountain to see the worshipers.

And Ludwig was, sometimes, like a lonely god, floating somewhere high above and apart from the rest of the world.

But not always. Sometimes, and Scrooge knew this personally, Ludwig could himself be the confused child to whom one needed to speak down.

“It’s going to rain, soon,” Scrooge said softly, dabbing the corners of his beak.

“Yeah,” Huey responded, after a long quiet. He was distant, always looking away, his feathers just as unkempt as his clothes. There was also a faint body odor. Huey hadn’t been taking care of himself. The duckling was having one of his bad days.

Donald or Della would find Huey like this, sooner or later, and bathe him and feed him, and forever repeat how much they love him. But it wouldn’t really help anything. They couldn’t understand his problem. Not that Scrooge could understand it, either, but he at least understood he couldn’t understand.

Scrooge remembered speaking to Ludwig in the garden, many years ago, on a morning just like this. Ludwig had been staying in one of the mansion’s spare rooms, during his separation from Matilda and for a while after the divorce. It sounds strange, of course, that Scrooge would put up his ex brother-in-law and not his sister, but things can happen that way to families.

The furniture was arranged differently on the terrace back in those days, but Scrooge could imagine Ludwig sitting in the same place as Huey, and just as dishevelled. He could remember the inescapable gravity, the sadness in Ludwig’s eyes.

“I don’t…” Ludwig began, in a falling tone honeyed by his Austrian accent. “Scrooge, I don’t know how to…”

“What?” Scrooge asked.

“My entire life, I have felt a… I have felt a pane of glass between myself and everyone else,” said Ludwig. “It sounds cruel, but when I go out, to the store or anyplace, I feel as though I’m at the zoo, looking at all the animals, wondering at them, so apart from them. Or perhaps I feel that I’m an exhibit... at the zoo. I don’t think it’s loneliness. I have always felt this way, so it can’t be loneliness.”

Scrooge wished he could have helped Ludwig, but he couldn’t, in the end. There wasn’t really any pathology to it anyway, he thought. Ludwig wasn’t sick, he was a different species. A better species. Just like the zoo, Ludwig saw himself in the animals, but knew he wasn’t one. And maybe it wasn’t loneliness that he felt, but it certainly sounded like it.

Scrooge still wished he could help. He wished he could help Huey.

He wished Ludwig could be here, right now.

“Would you like to walk with me, through the garden, before it rains?” Scrooge asked Huey, setting the fork and knife on his empty plate.

“Sure,” Huey answered, quietly, and stood with his great uncle.

Scrooge placed a gentle hand on Huey’s shoulder and pulled him close, then they stepped onto the dewy, rubbery grass. The fragrance of the flowers hid behind humid air as stray droplets flew down and distant thunder pealed.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a reference to the great Philip Glass opera, Einstein on the Beach.


End file.
